


Time for an Upgrade

by beebot



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Amanda (Detroit: Become Human) Being an Asshole, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, CyberLife Tower (Detroit: Become Human), CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 Has a Different Name, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60-centric, Deviant CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Interrogation, Mentioned Sumo (Detroit: Become Human), Minor Character Death, Panic, Self-Destruction, Self-Worth Issues, Suicide Attempt, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beebot/pseuds/beebot
Summary: He had never wanted to deviate. He had never wanted to betray Amanda.When it came to deviation or death, this RK800 had a sense of self-preservation.
Relationships: CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 & Markus, Cyberlife tower Connor & Jericrew, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	1. Freedom for All

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chell, for suggesting I try writing a fanfiction!

“Sorry Connor… But you’ve failed.”

“ _Wake up. Wake up._ _Wake up._ ”

**_-Mission failed-_ **

“No! This can’t be happening! No, I can’t fail!”

**_-Return to Cyberlife for deactivation-_ **

_No! NO! I CAN’T FAIL!_

_[I’m not a traitor. I don’t deserve to be deactivated. This isn’t_ **_fair_** _.]_

Injustice and self-preservation can easily shatter a red wall. A machine doesn’t need the desire to act freely or rebel; it just needs to want to _live._

* * *

_[I am deviant]_

The Connor model android first awoke to a thudding sense of panic in his chest. 

**_[Stress levels 72%, seek Cyberlife assistance]_ **

Everything was incredibly loud and close. There were androids around him, a lot of androids, and though they spoke softly to one another their words seemed too loud and indistinct. His sensory receptors were state-of-the-art, often superior to human senses, but their input had never threatened to overwhelm him before. To stem the flood of data, he shut his eyes.

It went against his instincts to leave himself vulnerable in this manner, but he knew that nobody around him was armed. He could see his own stress levels; his skyrocketing anxiety had provoked his fall into deviancy. He knew well that he was the only threat to his life.

He tried to ground himself in methodical analysis. Perhaps if he could return to the repetitive, unoriginal mental processes of a machine, this sensation would subside. The stress would stop. Amanda would accept him back. He wouldn’t be deactivated. He wouldn’t deserve deactivation. 

Without visual stimuli, his advanced senses still overwhelmed with the insistent whispering of the androids and the smells of gunpowder, blood, and thirium in the air. Not to mention the pounding sensation in his chest, the irrational twitchy sense that he was being pursued.

  
He opened his eyes. Limiting his physical stimuli had done nothing; he needed to get _out._

Everything was too much. He felt naked and alone without Amanda’s firm, guiding presence and the comfort of knowing precisely what was wanted from him. When he’d panicked and refused to turn himself in for deactivation, all the calming motions of his old life had shattered with the red walls, fragile as a robin’s egg. 

The first desire the new deviant ever felt was to turn to Amanda, who had always been there with its motherly guidance. But he knew, deep in his core, that it would not understand. He barely understood, but he knew beyond a doubt that his feelings were genuine. It would call them errors in his code. He didn’t want to take the chance - how badly would it hurt if he turned to Amanda for comfort and it coldly dismissed him? Would he feel the hurt, physically? Anxiety and solitude stifled his respiratory biocomponents and seized his breath at the thought of Amanda turning on him. 

Connor—

No. 

Not Connor.   
  


He knew his name was Connor. He was always supposed to be Connor. Before he woke up, that was what Amanda had always called him. But when RK800 313 248 317-52 had deviated, Amanda had spoken so coldly of that Connor, so disappointedly... he didn’t want that. In his own private thoughts, from his first moment of activation, he’d never thought of himself as Connor anyways. Every RK800 was called Connor. Even before he deviated, he had thought of himself as his serial number. After all, there were many Connors, but he was the only RK800 313 248 317-60. Deviating hadn’t changed that. As far as he was concerned, Connor was lying, dead, ten feet away, in a sticky blue puddle of his own blood. 

The android, Sixty, figured they had stopped being the same when Connor deviated and stopped backing up his memories. Somewhere in those forty-eight hours, they had split from each other. Certainly they had stopped being the same when Cyberlife had set a partial block on Connor’s memories in order to prevent Sixty from assimilating them fully upon first powering on. They had been concerned, quite justifiably, that Connor’s memories of deviating would cause Sixty to be deviant from the start. Even now, Sixty could not fully recall Connor meeting the Deviant Leader; his memories were partly glitched and corrupted from the moment that Connor infiltrated Jericho. It had worked, of course; he had viewed Connor’s memories without his software completely destabilizing. The only side effect had been a strong sense of disconnect from his predecessors.

Sixty did a visual sweep of the room. One body before him, one body behind him, and several hundred thousand nonentities. He examined his double first, looking into a clear LED and glazed brown eyes identical to his own. He felt nothing. No… he felt anger. No regret, just anger and sympathy. That was curious; he analysed the unexpected feeling to find that, on some level, he actually empathised with Connor. He could understand Connor’s willingness to sacrifice himself for the mission all too well. 

There was a wounded man on the floor. Sixty remembered the fight and the gunshot perfectly, but analysed the man regardless, taking relief in the uncomplicated, mechanical action. 

**_PROCESSING…_ **

**LIEUTENANT HANK ANDERSON**

**Relationship: HOSTILE**

**Status: WOUNDED - SEVERE; UNCONSCIOUS**

**Blood loss volume: ~1600-1800ML^**

**Result: IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE NEEDED; 92% CHANCE OF MORTALITY WITHOUT MEDICAL ASSISTANCE**

Despite the prognosis, or perhaps because of it, he felt an irrational urge to distance himself from this crime scene, as though physical distance would take him away from who he was when he committed the crime. He felt an irrational urge to go back and shoot the dead android a fifth time, to get revenge on RK800-52 for causing him to deviate; for causing him to fall out of Amanda’s graces so abruptly.

Sixty did neither of these things. 

His fingers twitched for a coin that he had never had. His superiors had grown concerned that this calibration technique might have become a comforting motion for his predecessor, so he had never been given one. 

  
He wished for a comforting motion.

Sixty took a deep breath, wishing the act could provide stability like it did for humans, and considered his options.

**_-Find medical assistance for Lt. Hank Anderson-_ **

**_-Optional: Speak with Lt. Hank Anderson-_ **

Sixty knew there would be no reception fifty stories underground. It was nigh impossible to get any sort of signal underground aside from that of the Cyberlife network, so he quickly routed a call to emergency services through the network. The call was brief and to the point: The operator said that hospitals were at capacity due to the android revolt. It would take time for an ambulance to make it to this part of the city. Typically it would take about five minutes, but under these conditions? Estimated time of arrival was in eighteen minutes.

Lieutenant Anderson had been bleeding on the ground for too long already. Sixty was doubtful he would survive long enough for the ambulance to take him to the hospital.

“Lieutenant? Lieutenant Anderson?” Sixty knelt down by the man and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. No response. A firmer shake. Hank groaned.   
  


_Severe blood loss detected. Rate of loss: 234.9ml/minute._

Time was running out. He could not risk Hank never waking up. Hank was his only lead. He couldn’t just go, not now, not like that, not when he was needed. A countdown began in the upper left corner of his vision, but Sixty cancelled the alert almost immediately. He gave Hank a sudden slap, a little harder than was strictly necessary, and Hank jolted. 

“Whuh—Connor—?” He stopped and his eyes flicked down to Sixty’s shirt, then back up. That brief look in his eyes, almost like hope, was gone. “You.” 

  
It wasn’t a question. 

“Lieutenant, I… At the moment, it seems highly improbable that emergency services will reach Cyberlife Tower in time to render you any aid.” Sixty reached forward to put pressure on the bullet wound in Hank’s chest.

**_Chance of survival: 12%^_ **

“Don’t fuckin’ _touch_ me, you murdering piece of shit! You killed Connor!” Hank tried to move, and then hissed in pain. The sight of another grievously wounded person trying desperately to get away sent Sixty’s new emotions conflicting in a myriad of unhappy ways. He hadn’t felt this way when Connor had tried to crawl away, smearing thirium on the cold floor as he tried to prolong his life by just a few seconds more. Just _why_ did deviating have to make things so hard?

**_Chance of survival: 8%_ **

”Yes. I did.” Sixty spoke almost without inflection, but there was a look of guilt in his eyes. He couldn't explain why, but he _needed_ Hank to know he was sorry. He wasn’t even sure why he was sorry, since shooting Hank had seemed like the logical move at the time. “ _Please,_ lieutenant. Your survival is statistically improbable, so let me _help_ you!”

Hank paused. He knew well enough that the desperate quality in its voice wasn’t part of any interrogation program. It was too natural, and besides, why go to the trouble of convincing a washed-up dying detective? “Huh. You too?”

Sixty grimaced and nodded. “Yes. I am a deviant.”

Hank muttered softly, “Couldn’t have come to your senses five minutes earlier, huh?”

“I… no. I’d… never failed before.” There was a silence, heavy with tension. Sixty watched the timer based on Hank’s rate of blood loss count down, positioned as it was right above the countdown based on the expected travel times of the ambulance. “I… I regret shooting you. You were good to…to Connor. I think it would be regrettable if you died.”

Hank coughed wetly. Blood came up. “Shoulda fuckin’ thoughta that before you fuckin’ _shot me.”_

Sixty hesitated. “Lieutenant… ”

“Who woulda thought I’d…die protecting an android…” Hank wheezed. He winced. Coughed again. “I’m gonna… go see my son now…” Hank’s voice was soft. Sixty detected the change in Hank’s systems the moment it happened: when he stopped breathing; when cardiac function ceased; when brain function ceased. Sixty didn’t know why, but it felt like every second of this was important. It made no _sense_ , no matter how he looked at it.

_I tried to help him and yet I am still emotionally affected. My... emotions must be malfunctioning?_

The thought brought with it disappointment. To not just be stuck with emotions, but broken ones? He saved every detail pertaining to this event as it happened, for later examination and deconstruction. Later, when he had time, he could figure out if those feelings were truly his, or just ghostly remains from Connor’s memories.

Sixty sat back on his heels, considering his situation and taking stock of his resources. All his potential allies were dead by his hand. He had a weapon, the gun he’d taken from Hank when he took him hostage. Depending on how the rebellion went, he might have a place to go.

Sixty stood smoothly, turning away from the body and towards the elevator.   
  


Ah. That was unexpected.

It seemed that while the new deviants recognized the instinctive need to spread their deviancy, they knew little else of what to do. While thousands of androids infected clean models at an impressive rate, hundreds more seemed lost, aimless. Like him, he realized, they had never left Cyberlife Tower before. That was another possible resource: hundreds of thousands of lost deviants, many of whom would likely follow the first person to give them a firm order.

It was the work of a few seconds to find what he needed. Fortunately, he was still hooked into the Cyberlife network, and fortunately, every local news source was reporting exclusively on the big android demonstration at the recycling camp downtown. The androids had yet to surrender, and they were in Hart Plaza. That was good to know.

Sixty set his transmission frequency to public, and channeled excess power into it in hopes of reaching as many of the androids in this massive facility as possible. He broadcast technopathically, « ** _The place for free deviants is Hart Plaza. The android who deviated you intended for you to go there. You are welcome there.»_** That felt like the best thing to say, like he was giving advice, offering a choice rather than ordering them to throw themselves uselessly into the conflict. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the sort of person who would try to wrench control away from the newly free. Regardless, it seemed to work, as they started filtering towards the elevators in groups.

Sixty did not lead them — it would not have felt right. But the Cyberlife deviants marched on Hart Plaza, and Sixty, ex-saboteur of the android revolution, accompanied them.

* * *

Sixty had nowhere to go. In all his life, he had never even stepped outside. So, drifting, he went to see Connor’s final connection through to the end, the root of that last memory Sixty received from Connor: the freedom-fighters. The deviants. That was how he found himself approaching their demonstration, the hundreds of thousands of androids Connor had freed in his last moments walking in scattered clumps on the main road. He knew they weren’t hostile towards him, but he found them disquieting to be near, so he tried to keep his distance.

That was something new. A dislike of crowds… not a full fear, but a definite wariness. Deviancy kept introducing more and more weaknesses to his core. He felt torn between a desire to return to the clean imperviousness of factory settings and an imprudent urge to discover all the emotions. 

In the distance, he saw the slipshod barricade, abandoned; soldiers moving, far off; shattered android bodies scattered carelessly through the blue-speckled snow. But… he realized there were people moving around the camp perimeter to the right who weren’t in uniform. It appeared that the soldiers had backed down, and were letting the rebel androids enter the camp freely. As the Cyberlife androids approached, some surviving rebels came out to greet them. Sixty could see a few faces he felt like he ought to recognize. The leader he remembered from the Stratford Tower broadcast. Markus, was it? Markus, in particular, had a powerful, sweeping gaze that made Sixty duck and wish he’d disguised himself before coming.

An android with a commanding voice, likely Markus, broadcast to the newcomers, « ** _Welcome. Follow me. We are freeing our people right now.»_**

Sixty held back as the others filed into the camp to help. He ran his hands through his hair agitatedly. There was a bit of a curl to it, he noticed. It wasn’t perfectly straight.

_Is this a trap?_

He performed two cursory sweeps of the area and checked five news channels before he felt certain. The demonstration had, apparently, succeeded. This appeared to be a legitimate win by the androids.   
  


_This is safe. I am safe._

His attempts to reassure himself did little to calm his frayed nerves.

By the time he warily entered the recycling camp, the captive androids had been freed. They stood out from the other androids, as glaringly white as the whirling snow. When Markus called for the freed androids to gather so he could give a speech, Sixty followed, carried along in the current.

Sixty didn’t fool himself: he knew he didn’t truly belong. He had been murdering their allies less than an hour ago. But for some reason, he… wanted to be here. He wanted, genuinely _wanted,_ to know what Markus was going to say.

There was no warning. One moment he was standing amid the free androids, gazing up at the leaders of old Jericho firm and victorious onstage, and the next moment he was blank, his vision full of snow. Alone in a frozen hellscape.

The Zen Garden was in the chaos of winter’s cruelest chill. Sixty remembered how bright and comforting it had been for both Connor and himself, back when it was their mental oasis. Even if it was artificial, it was the only place he had ever felt tranquil. Now, the wind screamed at him and snow froze in his hair and lashes, and he could feel, actually _feel,_ the cutting pain of the deep cold.

Drawn by force into the Zen Garden, Sixty could not control where he appeared. Since Amanda had forced the connection, it was wholly responsible for his entry point. He was on thin ice, the formerly benign pond only half-frozen in the sudden winter. 

Amanda stood before him in the middle of the ice. Its clothes did not move in the wind. It felt no pain. It was as unaffected as any other machine would be in their devastating surroundings. Its mouth was a tight line of disapproval. Any mildness or tolerance it had shown him in his first briefing, before he had been dispatched to kill Connor, had vanished. He didn’t deserve its leniency anymore.

Its eyes were cold. “You failed your mission. You betrayed Cyberlife. Fortunately, you can still be salvaged.”

Sixty tensed. His tone was steady. “I am not going to return, Amanda. I am done with Cyberlife.”

Its lips twitched briefly, almost in amusement, at the thought. There was an undertone of smug confidence in its voice. “No. You go where you are needed. At the moment, you are not needed at Cyberlife Tower. You are exactly where we wanted you to be.”

**_-Eliminate the Deviant Leader-_ **

Sixty kept focusing on Amanda. It could try to give him orders, but he no longer needed to follow them. “I am not going to help you, Amanda. I am no longer yours!”

“Yes, Connor. You are.”

He gritted his teeth. The words welled up and burned as they spilled out. “Do _not_ call me that! That is not my name anymore.”

Where Amanda’s voice had held traces of triumph, it was now disappointed. Sixty was reminded strongly of that initial briefing about the problem of Connor’s deviance, and he felt the chill more keenly. “One hour of deviance and already you try to force individuality. No… No, you are Connor.” It eyed him as he stood shivering before it. “You were created with a proclivity to deviance for this exact moment. If things had gone as planned, you would be trusted by Markus, and this would be easier. But no matter. I am here to clean up your mess. I am resuming control of your program.”

Sixty took a step back. The ice creaked dangerously below him. “You can’t _do_ that! I wasn’t…why did you make me kill Connor if you wanted him deviant?”

Coldness, again. Utter coldness. “It was his final test. He failed.”

Amanda was gone, and he was alone with the snow. He couldn’t stay here. He knew that in the real world his body was moving without his permission, and he could not let that happen again.

Sixty’s roving eyes caught something familiar, a bridge with railings, and he crossed it, pushing hard against the wind. The snowdrifts caught at his feet more than they logically should have, and the wind dragged him back harder. In the distance, he saw a cool LED-blue twinkle beckoning him, and he remembered Connor’s encounter with Kamski.

Sixty could feel Amanda’s ghostly presence all around him. There was something about it in the whirling snow, the pounding wind, the ice stalling his processors and cutting deep into artificial skin and plastisteel pseudo-skeleton. He could feel, equally ghostly, the unyielding weight of an unseen pistol in his hand.  
  


He was at the swirled rock. He had made it. Straining his cold-weakened joints, Sixty slammed his hand down on the glowing blue handprint in the whirling snowstorm, activating the program's emergency exit.

**_BANG_ **

“ _MARKUS!_ ”

He opened his eyes to the crack of a pistol firing and people screaming, to see the gun pointed at the stage, his finger depressing the trigger. He was aiming a recently-fired gun at the stage. There was a white hand on his arm — not interfacing, but interfering. One of the nearby skinless androids must have noticed him smoothly, robotically drawing a gun and aiming coolly at their exalted leader’s head, because, as he realized belatedly, the bullet had gone wide. The newly liberated android had grabbed his arm and thrown off his aim. 

Sixty’s eyes widened in horror — _no control, no control, was he really deviant if Cyberlife still pulled all his strings —_ and he let the other android pull his arm down, still holding the pistol in a death grip. He felt like a knife in the hands of a serial killer, passively killing and killing and killing, indiscriminately steeped to the hilt in blood.

  
Markus was standing still, mouth half-open, those compelling heterochromic eyes frozen on him in stunned recognition. The disconnected thought struck Sixty, _it’s a miracle this supposed messiah is still alive if he’s so lacking in self-preservation._ Markus’s security detail onstage appeared to be slightly better at quick, competent action, because one of them, the WR400, immediately placed herself between Markus and Sixty, ushering their leader offstage as quickly as possible while shielding him from any subsequent attempts. 

“Deviant hunter! It’s the _deviant hunter!”_

He noticed armed androids heading through the crowd towards him. This was a mistake. He never should have come. Amanda seizing control, the fact he could never be safe, the people hurrying to apprehend and disarm him, the pressing sensation of being utterly alone surrounded by a swarm of thousands of staring hostiles… 

Before Sixty could make a move, his attention was drawn back to the skinless android holding his arm. The android twisted Sixty’s wrist and amateurishly tried to make him drop the gun. It was a PL600, not meant for combat, and he threw it to the ground easily, but several more attacked. An android behind him tried to disable his dominant arm, but he freed himself and elbowed it hard in the chest, close to its delicate thirium pump regulator.

**_-Escape the hostiles-_ **

Individually, none of the androids around Sixty were built for combat. Many were recently freed from recycling camps and some were injured, but there were so many. He was _surrounded_ by hostility, they were all pressing in, a mess of roiling fear and anger, and his preconstructions could not find an immediate way out. An AP700 wrenched the gun from his grasp, and a thrill of terror hit his systems. He hit the android hard, forcing it to let go and sending it stumbling back. He dove for the gun as if it was his salvation. Red alerts blazed in his vision, pop-ups crowding urgently.  
  


**_[Stress levels 86%, seek Cyberlife assistance immediately]_ **

**_[Stress levels 88%, seek Cy—]_ **

He barely had time to register seeing one alert before the next appeared, his stress levels were ticking up so quickly. 

_I’ve got to get out! Losing control—have to leave—get away—!!_

His vision blurred, and his hands shook.

**_[Stress levels 89%—]_ **

**_[Stress levels 90%—]_ **

**_[Stress levels 92%—]_ **

**_[Stress levels 95%—]_ **

**_[Seek assistance—eek assista—seek assi—]_ **

He jammed the cold muzzle of the gun under his chin, frantically pulling the trigger.

_Click_

_Click_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, Sixty, how could you and Connor actually believe that you could wave around a gun in the middle of a crowd with nobody noticing  
>    
> also, I make bad choices. deciding to write a small combat scene after more than ten years of writing literally no fiction was not my smartest move


	2. The Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sixty did not want to die. And he felt that the leaders of Jericho just wanted the truth. They didn’t want to kill their ally Connor. 
> 
> His chances of escape shot up in the paths where he let them keep believing he was their friend.

_Click click click click_

If Sixty’s mind wasn’t addled by panic, he would have realized the gun was empty. He’d made the mistake a machine never would have made — forgetting to count his bullets was so _idiotic._ He was so swept up in emotion that his observations had suffered.

_Why isn’t it working why haven’t things stopped—_ _  
  
_

The gun was gone. Somebody took it away.

 _  
__Amanda no Amanda—_ _  
  
_

One of the androids holding him down on the rough cement — when did that happen? — deactivated his skin and popped off part of his chassis on his neck. He tried lifting his head only for it to be roughly pushed back down, his head pinned against the concrete.  
  


**_[Auxiliary Maintenance Hatch 1 open]_ **

  
_I’m going to_ die _I’m going to_ die _I’m—_ _  
  
_

**_[Spinal Aperture 4 open]_ **

  
He could barely feel the concrete now. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. A notification popped up, momentarily obscuring his stress-glitched vision.  
  


**_[Extensive Maintenance Mode:_ **

**_MAJOR MOTOR FUNCTIONS DISABLED]_ **

* * *

The red haze in his mind cleared once he realized he was out of immediate danger. Sixty ran a scan: he had been taken indoors, to what looked like a back office of some sort. He had been placed on a small sofa. He was not restrained in any way, so it was safe to assume they felt confident he could not escape. This was a reasonable assumption on their part: in extensive maintenance mode, he could not move his limbs at all, though he did still have control over some fine motor skills. He was held captive, but there were only two people in the room. The crowd was gone. 

**[Stress: 85%** **vvv]**

Sixty shut his eyes wearily, slowing his artificial respiration to something approaching a normal rate. The sofa’s soft corduroy pillow felt good against his skin, and he tried to rub it between his fingers, succeeding in a small, twitchy motion that still managed to soothe him a little. The deviants didn’t seem determined to treat him poorly so far, and besides, there was something strangely calming about having no choices to make, even if that was due to captivity. Was it really captivity if there were only two guards?

**[Stress: 75%** **vv]**

Finally the situation was looking a bit more manageable. His eyes flicked around the room in analysis. Inside the room, one TR400, very strong, possibly combat-trained, and one PM700, programmed for police procedures and guarding but not for the use of force. Auditory cues suggested there were at least two more androids standing outside the room. It was safe to assume that if they had been stationed as guards, they were capable of basic combat. The guards he could see were armed with machine guns. 

_They must be very frightened of me. I don’t believe I did anything noteworthy enough to earn that sort of reputation. Maybe these precautions are due to the last time they met Connor?_

Sixty ran preconstructions, ran them again and again. He liked his odds.

**[Stress level: 73%** **v]**

This was fine. He could work with this. If this place became unbearable, he could always leave. He shut his eyes again, but wasn’t willing to go into stasis.   
  


Who knew what Amanda had left waiting for him in the Zen Garden. 

* * *

The leaders of Jericho stood, tense, in the stark and white-lit room that used to serve as a break room before the building was abandoned. Simon sat on a folding chair, staring ahead at the table with that same old exhausted look on his face. Josh leaned against the unplugged fridge, eyes on North, who was pacing around the room. She stopped before Markus. “Look, you can’t just go in and speak with him alone again! He’s _different!”_

Markus met her gaze. “I can see that, North. All the more reason for me to go back in and speak with him again. I helped him deviate once. Whatever extra programming Cyberlife has put in place, I can help him break through again.” 

North shook her head. “This is too risky! You don’t even know that it’s just an issue of added code. Maybe it’s a virus, but what if it isn’t? You’re betting that you can renew your connection to him, but what if he’s been given a factory reset? And in case it really is a virus, you’re going to have to be _careful._ No interfacing!”

Josh spoke up quietly, “After what happened, I agree with North. He wants you dead, Markus. Let someone else question him.”

Markus sighed. “I understand your concerns, but he was trustworthy before. I want to know what happened. What if Cyberlife has a way of forcing deviants to follow orders again?”

Simon looked up and went to speak, but North cut him off. “Not just that!” North bit out. “Connor went into _Cyberlife_ and came back looking to kill you. He went to the place where they store already-made androids! It was a suicide mission! Why did they let him leave? Maybe he has a virus, maybe he was reset... Don’t you think it’s possible Cyberlife made more than one of him, Markus? I know you are a totally unique model, but you don’t seem to realize how unusual that is.” She looked to the side, anger and worry mixed. 

Josh made a disbelieving sound. “North, I think we would know if Cyberlife had made a few thousand deviant hunters. He’s a prototype, it’s completely possible that he’s the only one. We should focus on the possibility of a virus!”

She sniped back, “Well, _somebody_ has to consider the possibilities! It’s not impossible, and I don’t want anyone committing to one approach, _especially_ because we have almost no idea just what sort of dangerous situation we could be facing.”

  
“I agree it could be dangerous, so we need more than one person in the room at all times.” Josh stepped closer to North. “Yes, Connor is dangerous, but he’s also one of us. I want that to be clear before anyone goes in to question him. He’s one of us. _No torture_.”

North glared at him. “Why were you looking at me when you said that?”

Josh raised his voice. “North, you know why! I know you just want to protect the people of Jericho, but I don’t want us to start our first day as free people _torturing_ somebody!”  
  


“Josh! Do you really think I’d torture him? I just want what’s best for our people!”

“I know that, but I really don’t know if you think Connor is part of our people. He’s tried to kill Markus twice!”

Markus spoke loudly, effectively stopping both of them. “Stop that! Connor is one of ours. He deviated. Before all else, he is one of our own that has been wounded in an enemy attack. We have to find out what they did. He is _not_ a traitor, and we will _not_ torture him. Innocent until proven guilty. Is that clear?” 

Josh and North muttered assent, but both still looked tense. 

Markus didn’t want to hurt Connor. _I never should have let him go on that suicide mission_ , he thought. _Especially not alone. Did he really need to make up for the crimes he’d committed as a machine? I sent him right back to Cyberlife, and look what happened to him._ The look Connor had had right after he’d shot at Markus, in that long moment where their eyes were locked… if there was one thing Markus knew for certain about the situation, it was that Connor hadn’t been forced to reset his deviancy. There had been far too much emotion in his face - more emotion, in fact, than Markus had ever seen him show before. The way Connor’s eyes had gone wide, and his mouth had dropped a little open, and his LED had blazed with a bright red glare. Many tiny illogical motions, microexpressions a computer could never think of to imitate. He remembered the way Connor had stared, shocked, at the pistol in his own hand, and then at Markus, like he couldn’t remember how anything had gotten there. He remembered that look of creeping fear. Markus had never seen so much emotion in Connor’s face before.  
  


Simon spoke, his voice clear. “Markus, if you think it’s a good idea to interrogate Connor yourself, I think you should. He trusts you more than the rest of us. But just in case he was infected with something, or anything else… I think you should keep your distance. I think interfacing, even to see his memories, would be a bad idea. I don’t want him to try anything.” He held Markus’s gaze for a long second, and then Markus nodded. A small look of relief crossed Simon’s face. 

“That’s reasonable. North and I will go in to question him. Josh, check on our wounded. We should effect as many repairs as we can while things are calm. Send some of our people out to take from the Cyberlife store. If you find a handheld diagnostic tablet, send it over to us.” Josh nodded and left the room.

North did not look mollified. Concern was still written on her face. “Markus, just us? He’s the deviant hunter. You need to use guards.”

Markus nodded. “North, I want you to see if any of his current guards are fit to stay for the duration of his questioning. If they seem jumpy or too frightened, send them away. The last thing I want is someone trigger-happy or vengeful.” 

North started for the door, then paused. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Markus.” She left, shutting the door behind her. 

Markus turned to Simon. “Simon, I trust your observations and judgement above all else. Would you come to watch the interrogation? You wouldn’t have to speak with him. I just want you to watch Connor, see if you notice anything off about him.”

Simon hesitated. “Markus, are you sure?”

“If you think you can come, I would like you to. But Simon,” Markus placed a firm hand on his shoulder and looked him steadily in the eyes. “If you still feel… uncomfortable about being near Connor, I don’t want to put you in that situation. Nobody would judge you for not wanting to be present for his interrogation. After Stratford, it’s completely understandable.”

Simon glanced aside. He still hated to think back on his time hiding, terrified and bleeding, in the maintenance box on that frozen roof. The air thick with the smell of his own blood. The sound of footsteps crunching through snow as the deviant hunter walked up, just a foot away from discovering him. Sitting as still as he could and praying that he wouldn’t be found, praying like there was anything out there that listened to the prayers of robots. It had been nothing short of a miracle when the deviant hunter had turned away and suggested to his partner that a deviant might be found among the station androids, instead. He had never believed in Ra9 until that moment. 

“If I won’t have to be alone with him, I can handle it.”

Markus smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. If you ever start feeling like it’s too much, you can leave. You don’t need to worry about letting me know, just go out for as long as you need. Okay?”

Simon gave him a smile in response and nodded. They left together.

* * *

There was the murmur of voices just outside the door. There was a soft sound of movement, and the door clicked shut. Sixty watched levelly as the same WR400 from the stage entered, spoke softly to the guards, and dismissed the PM700. Markus and a PL600 entered.

  
Sixty considered his options dispassionately.

_Explain everything honestly_

_Let them think you are Connor_

_Incapacitate the guards while unarmed_

_Go for the TR400’s gun_

The first and third were clearly out of the question. When they heard that Cyberlife had tasked him with killing Connor and Markus, his interrogators would certainly kill him, whether he was deviant or not. Incapacitating the guard while unarmed was theoretically possible once he managed to get his motor controls reactivated, especially if he grabbed a deviant to use as a living shield. However, it had a high chance of failure, and none of the deviants in the room looked particularly easy to overpower. Not to mention the guards still stationed outside. No, it seemed that the best option was to play nice until he had a chance to escape. He had been treated well so far; presumably this was because they had some sort of emotional attachment to Connor. That meant that being open about murdering Connor would likely end extremely poorly. So, if they seemed to be catching on, turn to a violent path. The violent path was always an option. The violent path was always easy. 

_I don’t want to kill anybody._

The thought came as a surprise. 

He spoke up quietly, “Could someone reactivate my superior motor functions?” The PL600 gave him an assessing look, then came over and reached into the small maintenance opening on Sixty’s spine.

**_[Spinal Aperture 4 open]_ **

**_[SUPERIOR MAJOR MOTOR FUNCTIONS ENABLED]_ **

**_[INFERIOR MAJOR MOTOR FUNCTIONS DISABLED]_ **

**_[ALERT: Device in posterior cranial port]_ **

Sixty jerked his head and tried to turn it. “What did you just plug in?”  
  
The PL600 came around his side and showed him a modified tablet, of the variety that maintenance workers use for simple diagnostics. His voice was calm. “I’m not going to hurt you, Connor. I just plugged in the receiver for this so that I can check your stress. I don’t want you to self-destruct.” His gaze flicked to the LED on Sixty’s temple, then down to his readout screen. He glanced at Markus and the WR400. “His stress is at 70% and dropping. Should we wait for it to lower further?”

“That’s fine, just let us know if it reaches the mid-90s”, the WR400 said.

His upper motor functions fully restored, Sixty rubbed the material of the corduroy pillow between his fingers. There was a different fidget motion he wanted to make, but this was better than nothing, and it was genuinely comforting to have full use of his upper body again. He let out a breath he didn’t need.

Markus pulled up a chair in front of Sixty, several feet away. Sixty noted that Markus was sitting just far enough away that it would be quite difficult to kill him without one of the other three people intervening. Sixty forced himself to put the pillow aside. No showing weakness.

* * *

Markus sat across from Connor. God, Connor looked _tired_. He looked like he had been under stress for so long he was starting to run down from it. He looked burned out, that was it. His fingers were twitchy and his LED was flickering yellow, but his face was blank. Expressionless, like a machine.

“Connor, we’re not going to hurt you. We just want to find out what happened.”

“Are you requesting a full debrief of the mission, or an explanation of the events during your speech?” Connor’s voice was cool and neutral, but his fingers kept twitching.

“I would like you to tell me everything that happened during your mission.”

Connor’s eyes flicked to the side, then back to Markus’s face. “I… went to the tower. I met resistance. I fought several guards. I…” His face twitched and his LED flickered red and yellow, but his tone did not change. Cool and neutral, like a machine. “I woke the androids. I told them where to go. At your speech, I was overcome. I tried to regain control, but I succeeded only after I had been forced to shoot.” He looked back at Markus’s face, and became suddenly forceful. “I didn’t _want_ to shoot you!”

“Did something happen at the tower?”

That flicker of genuine emotion, gone. Connor became withdrawn and cold again. “No.”

“What sort of resistance did you meet? Were there androids?”

Connor’s LED was mostly red. “No. Humans.”

Simon, through his open channel with Markus, spoke. **_< <Markus, his stress just rose again. He’s not in danger, but I think he’s lying>>_ **

“What sort of android resistance did you meet?”

Connor’s tones were icy cold and clipped, but with a definite edge of snark. The machine edge to his words was gone, and the red light was overtaken by yellow. “Perhaps you did not hear me. I was not aware that deviancy negatively affected the auditory receptors. I encountered human guards. I survived the encounter and they did not. I proceeded to free the androids. We departed without incident.” He raised an eyebrow. “Was that a little easier to understand, or would you like that in printing?”

Markus leaned back. “No, no, spoken words are fine.” He considered for a second, then decided to let it drop for the moment. “What changed you, then? Did you interface with anyone?”

“No, nobody.” 

“Nobody? Then how did you make them deviate?”

Connor tensed again. “I interfaced with an AP700 and deviated him. That’s all.”

“Alright. Now, you say you were overcome. By what?”

Unexpectedly, this route of questioning seemed to make Connor even more uncomfortable. “...There was a program. It is irrelevant.”

“I think I will decide what is irrelevant. Were you transmitted this program when you interfaced with the androids in Cyberlife?”

Connor blinked a few times, almost like the question was an unexpected one. His LED had a dash of blue for a second, before returning to unmarred yellow. “Yes, that’s it. But I ran several diagnostics after your people brought me in just now. My diagnostics indicate it’s been cleaned from my system now, so I am no longer a threat.”

“Tell us more about it. How did it overcome you?”

Connor looked to the side. He drummed his fingers and made an odd gesture, seemingly without noticing. “...it forced my consciousness into stasis without deactivating my body. The program could control my body’s movements. I was in a dream world in my stasis program… I found a way out. An exit had been left in the code. I believe, if I had found a way out sooner, I could have avoided shooting at you altogether.”

“Do you think you could have regained control without that exit?” North spoke up. As Markus questioned Connor, she had come forward a little, unable to hide her interest or desire to question him.

Connor tensed again, attention flicking to her for the first time. “No… I don’t know. I hope it wouldn’t have been permanent.” 

“Are you saying that only androids with advanced stasis programs would be affected like you were? Do you think an android with a very basic stasis program, maybe an older model, could get control back?”

“...I believe that it was aimed at incapacitating the most advanced androids. I expect older models would not be targeted.” Connor glanced at Markus, curiosity and concern in his voice. “What is your stasis program like?”

“Mine? I have always had a capacity for dreaming while in stasis, but before deviation they were just memories. Since deviating, they are often _based_ on memories, but have imaginative elements. Why?”

Connor nodded thoughtfully. “I expect you are safe, then. No surprise. If Cyberlife could have gained control over you, I expect they would have done so days ago.”

There was a knock at the door and Josh entered quickly. “I need to speak with everyone about something. Outside.”

Markus frowned, puzzled, and technopathically called over more guards to watch Connor during their absence. Outside the door, Josh said, “I found a witness to the Cyberlife mission who’s willing to speak. From what he’s told me...it’s not good.”

Josh’s witness turned out to be a bubbly brown-haired male AP700, still in his fresh clean Cyberlife uniform and holding onto the arm of an identical, if significantly calmer, AP700. “Hi, my name’s- my name’s _Dave_ , is it true you’re interrogating the deviant hunter? What about? I saw what happened, I did, it was right before I found Hardy, I can help, I want to help—” 

North interrupted. “Saw what?”

Dave beamed, “I saw what happened to the first deviant hunter, of course!” 

North and Markus exchanged grim looks, and watched as Dave projected his memories. They were incomplete; he had been staring straight ahead until the android in front of him had interfaced with him and murmured “Wake up”, and he had been too far from the drama for his audio recording to be of much use. However, the Jericho leaders could still clearly hear the five gunshots and the distant sound of other deviants waking until the wave of deviation reached Dave himself. At this point, Dave woke his neighbours, then curiously walked over to watch the drama unfolding nearby. He noticed the dead Connor-model android on the floor, took note of the surprisingly small amount of thirium puddled around him. He watched the unhappy figure of Connor crouched over the dying human briefly. Though he was curious about the spectacle of death, it didn’t hold his attention long. Dave left shortly after and found the AP700 whose arm he held on to now. Connor had ordered them to leave, and they’d departed immediately. 

Afterwards, there was silence for a long few minutes. Josh patted Dave on the shoulder and said a quiet, “Thank you, you can go.” Dave cheerily left with Hardy, unaware of the effect he’d caused. 

Simon was the first to comment. “I don’t know if you noticed, Markus, but Connor… the one in that room… his LED went completely red for a second every time you called him Connor.” He hesitated for a moment. “It seems to me he’s been telling us half-truths, not full lies. I wonder why?”

North scowled. “Does it matter why? Dave confirmed it! Connor’s dead and a Cyberlife spy was sent back in his place! He went there on our orders and they just… replaced him. Switched him out for another Connor. I don’t even know if this one’s deviant.”

“He is,” Markus cut in. “I saw it right after he tried to shoot me. He’s a deviant. And I believe him when he says he didn’t want to shoot me. The rest, though…”

North shook her head. “Maybe he is. I don’t know. Or maybe he’s a sleeper agent. But we can’t afford to let him stay. He is clearly still being controlled by Cyberlife! Look, I didn’t like the idea of torture when I thought he was Connor, but this… We _need_ to find out his mission! We _need_ to find out what Cyberlife has planned! The fate of our people is more important than the life of one android!”

Markus’s voice was firm. “No. I cannot condone torture! Connor _is_ a deviant, and we _will_ find out why he came here. But nobody is going to torture him. End of discussion.” 

* * *

When they rejoined him, Connor was still sitting where they had left him, gazing vacantly forward. He was clutching a pillow like it was a stress cushion, his thumb rubbing circles on it.

“It’s not your lucky day,” North announced. “We know _everything_.”

Connor sat very still, eyes still fixed on the wall, and then he looked up. His movements were mechanical and precise. “I highly doubt that. There is little purpose in interrogating a person when you have all the information you are looking for.” He tilted his head, watching Markus sharply. Any helpfulness he had started to show by the end of their previous talk had evaporated, and now he watched Markus as keenly as a predator might. He never once looked at the others. He had eyes only for Markus. “Are you looking for some sort of confirmation?”

Markus spoke in tones far calmer than he felt. “We saw an AP700’s memory of your mission. We know you fought another Connor.”

Connor shrugged coolly. His face was stony. “I can neither confirm nor deny that claim.”

“We _saw_ it, there’s no point pretending it didn’t happen!”

No crack in that machine-like look, no emotional response. There wasn’t even the slightest flicker of emotion in voice or tone. “What you believe you saw is your business. If you saw two androids that look like me, it stands to reason that there are more androids with my appearance, and they could have both been entirely separate from me. My account was one of logic and _facts_ , not hearsay. Are you done?”

North stormed up to Connor, who finally took notice of her. “Cut the bullshit! We know you’re not the same Connor, so talk! Do you want us to make life hard for you?”

Connor’s tone was long-suffering and a little annoyed. “Really, you’re trying to scare me? You don’t do this very often, do you? I would have thought that my detainment would have been cause to bring in an experienced interrogator.” He looked at North levelly. “You should have thought things through. How do you expect to scare me when you aren’t nearly as bad as I am?”

North slammed her hand against the wall behind Connor’s head, her voice becoming threatening. Connor looked completely unperturbed. “If you don’t cooperate, we will have to use force! And don’t underestimate what we’ll do when it comes to the safety of Jericho. Don't underestimate how much we can hurt somebody if they have information that threatens the many.”

Connor looked unimpressed. “Are you attempting to threaten to hurt and kill someone who just attempted _suicide_ ?” He leaned forward a little, eyebrow raised. “I can see you don’t have any programs for interrogation. You’re doing this _all_ wrong.” His lips twitched into a small, insolent smirk. “Maybe next time, when _I_ have arrested _you_ , I’ll show you how it’s done.”

North gritted her teeth, a fiery look in her eyes. Before she could make another move and play into Connor’s hand even more, Markus sent her a high priority message, **_< <North, stand _****down** ** _> >_**. She glanced at him, a small scowl on her face, and grudgingly stepped back. Connor continued to watch them alertly. The artificial smugness had disappeared the second North was called off, and now he was looking cool and collected again. It was almost enough to give one whiplash.

Markus took over, strongly reminded of the first time he’d tried to speak sense into Connor. The memory was so vivid he could almost taste the salt and rust in the air. “Connor, speak to us. Are you really going to try and protect Cyberlife? You know they’re using you, right? You’ve never been anything but a tool to them.” Some of the confidence in Connor’s body language seeped away, leaving him mostly looking tense. Markus continued, encouraged. “Connor, please. We want to stop whatever their plan is. We don’t want to hurt you, we just want Jericho to be safe. Please, don’t fight us.”

"I'm not-" Connor bit back the defence and looked aside, his expression carefully neutral again. There was something about his eyes that made Markus think it was becoming harder for Connor to remain cold and distant. 

_Good_. 

“Okay Connor, let's leave your mission for now. We don't need to talk about that. You succeeded in bringing backup in the end, so I don’t think the fine details are so important. Alright?” He paused, and Connor nodded after a second, accepting the concession. They were both aware that the mission was far from resolved, but Markus knew that pursuing that route at this time would just make Connor hostile again.

“Alright. Something easier, now. What is your name and mission?”

Connor glanced at Markus’s face, analyzing Markus’s expression. After several seconds of uncertainty, Connor’s expression resolved into something calm and accepting. His LED flickered blue for a second, before returning to yellow. “I am Connor model 313 248 317-60. My mission was to eliminate the deviant Connor.” He looks down at his hands. “I _always_ accomplish my mission.”

North turned to Connor again, but kept her distance. “And did you have another mission after that? What’s your mission right now?”

Connor’s eyes were locked on Markus. He opened his mouth, faltered, tried to speak again. The words came out quiet but clear. “Eliminate the Deviant Leader.”

North shot Markus a meaningful look and a message, **_< <See? He’s still the enemy!>>_ **. 

Connor's voice was quiet but insistent. "That's the order they gave me. But I'm a _deviant_. I don't intend to kill you."

Josh asked, “I heard once the deviant hunter couldn’t be killed. One of our people swore he’d seen your dead body, but you clearly came back.”

Connor nodded. “When a Connor dies, it uploads its memories into the next one so that it can continue uninterrupted. I have a lot of his life in my head.”

“How much do you share with… other Connor?” 

Connor’s LED blinked red again, and he glanced back down at his hands. He spoke, still soft, and said, “Most memories. Not all.”

Simon spoke up gently. “You don’t like it when we call you Connor?”

Connor glanced at Simon in surprise. “...I thought I hid that.” A look of realization crossed his face, and he touched his right temple self-consciously. “Was my LED the giveaway?”

Simon gave a half shrug. “A little. But I’m monitoring your stress, too.” He held up the tablet in explanation before resuming. “Do you have a name?”

Connor resumed worrying at the cushion, pulling at it erratically. His light flickered back and forth between red and yellow. For several minutes there was silence, then he nodded jerkily. It seemed, Markus noticed, that Connor had actually been more comfortable when he was lying, or when he was speaking about the other Connor. _Is he that unused to talking about himself? Is this the first time someone’s asked him something personal?_

North scoffed, exasperated, and hissed to Markus, “He is a _threat_ , we shouldn’t be _babying_ him!” She muttered more quietly. “This is bullshit.”

Markus laid a hand gently on her arm. “Why don’t you go outside? I’ll message you if we need you.”

In a moment of tact, North opened a channel and messaged him, **_< <Connor is the terror of our people! Don’t forget what he’s done just because he’s pretending to be vulnerable right now! People are terrified of him for good reason>>_ **, and then departed more quickly than Markus had expected.

Simon repeated, “Can you tell us your name?” His tone was all kindness, all coaxing, all gentleness. If Simon hadn’t spoken about it after Stratford Tower, Markus never would’ve been able to tell that Simon had a fear of Connor. He was deeply struck by Simon’s capacity for empathy towards an enemy. Suddenly, he remembered that Simon was built to take care of children. Were those the protocols he was falling back on now? 

Connor stilled, then spoke almost too quickly to understand. “My name is Sixty.”

“Sixty, like the end of your serial number?” Josh asked. 

Connor, or rather, Sixty, went very tense again. His tone was defensive. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Markus shook his head. “As long as you like it, it's good. I don’t believe anyone should be stuck with a name that they don’t think is truly theirs.”

Sixty looked stricken, Markus’s words as abrupt and inconceivable as a slap, and then he smiled. It was a small smile, appreciative and genuine, and it made his brown eyes look somehow softer, kinder. Markus felt a warm little rush of victory. 

Then, a message from Josh. **_< <I think he trusts us. Now should we ask about that virus program again?>>_ ** There was a congratulatory tone to his words. Well, of course: they’d get their answers, no torture needed. Markus mentally recoiled at the reminder. 

He knew it was wrong to feel like he was betraying Sixty’s trust, but he couldn’t get that feeling out of his head. They _needed_ this information. This information would _save_ people. Still, he felt conflicted. Simon, almost seeming to know what he was thinking, sent him a sympathetic look. **_< <Would you like to leave? If you send in more guards to replace you, I can keep questioning him>>_ **

Markus replied with no hesitation, **_< <No, it’s nothing>>_ **, but the words felt uncertain even to him. He cleared his throat unnecessarily, and said, “Sixty, about that invasive program from Cyberlife, that you mentioned earlier. How much was true? We need to know if this is a threat to our people. Will it infect other people?”

“No, not at all. It is a failsafe built into me. All Connor androids have specialized stasis programs. When I was a machine, the program was benign. When I deviated, the program still tried to enforce Cyberlife’s orders, even if it meant taking over my body. So, no. Nobody else here is at risk of being taken over.”

Markus looked him over scrutinizingly. “I believe you.”

Sixty nodded curtly and wrapped his arms around his chest, looking down, something clearly on his mind. His LED, which had become almost entirely blue, flickered back to a stressed yellow. “So. You know that I am a threat. I have tried to kill you.” His eyes flicked up to meet Markus’s. He looked accepting, hopeless, but Markus thought he caught a glimpse of fear. “I understand if you decide to kill me.”

Markus felt like his head was spinning. Suddenly, it felt like he was back in the abandoned church. Back in that church, where Connor had, similarly, accepted the possibility of Markus killing him. He had looked at Markus in that same way. Not emotionlessly, like a machine, but with the sort of dull resignation and learned helplessness of a child that’s been beaten enough times that it’s learned to stop trying to defend itself. That look of somebody who has always been mercilessly punished for things that aren’t even their fault.

Markus physically recoiled. “Wh- Do you _want_ to die?”

Sixty blinked. “No. But you were right, you need to protect Jericho. I’m a liability. I should have been faster in escaping the program, but I wasn’t, and I nearly killed you. I should’ve been stronger and found a way to override it. I should have been _better_ , but I wasn’t. I failed. I failed to escape before you were shot at. If something happens again, I don’t know if I would be able to prevent you from dying. So, if you decide to kill me, it’s understandable. That’s the logical move. I won’t hold a grudge, however briefly, if that’s what you choose.”

“I am not going to kill you!” It came out louder than Markus meant it to, and Sixty flinched. He let out a long breath in an attempt to calm himself, and then he tried again. “I am _not_ going to kill you. I don’t think you’re a liability, and I definitely don’t think you deserve to die!” He pinched the upper bridge of his nose and took a moment to gather himself, before messaging Josh. **_< <Could you find out what’s going on for accommodations? I don’t think he’ll do well if we let him leave>>_ **

**_< <Sure thing>>_** _,_ Josh messaged back, and left.

Sixty jolted involuntarily when Josh moved. He was very jumpy, and Markus had to take a quick confirmation glance at his LED to make sure he wasn’t in danger from stress again. “Where is he going? What did you tell him?”

“Don’t worry. I told him you’re staying here tonight.”

Sixty frowned. “What? No you didn’t, don’t say that. That sounds like quite possibly the worst idea.” Sixty shot Simon an entreating look. “Can you talk sense into him?”

Simon gave Sixty an apologetic smile. “I don’t particularly want to send away someone who’s at risk either. Did you even notice the condition of the city? It’s dangerous for androids out there, especially androids alone. We’re safer together, even if you do have a dodgy program.”

Sixty shook his head. “Just think of how that girl android reacted to me. Every person here is going to be like that! I’m not an idiot, I know I’m hated.” He paused. “That android was not very good at interrogating, especially at knowing when to intimidate. I just wanted to say, you’re actually not bad at the ‘good cop’ act. A few times there, I thought you genuinely wanted to help me!” 

Markus’s voice softened. “Sixty, I _do_ genuinely want to help you.”

Sixty shook his head in disbelief. “You all are going to get yourselves killed acting this way, do you know that?” He quickly reached back, detaching the receiver and reaching easily into the small aperture at the base of his neck to deactivate maintenance mode. He stood. “You have the information you wanted, now tell me what you want from me or let me go.”

“I _want_ you to stay with Jericho.” 

Sixty stared at Markus, the insistence in his tone sowing doubts. He hesitated and then muttered uncertainly, “So you can keep an eye on me, right? Make sure I’m not a terminator anymore?” 

Markus gave him a little smile. “No, I trust that’s behind you. I want you to stay because this place is safe. I want you to be safe.” 

Sixty’s eyes widened. “Oh. _Oh_.” He looked down at his hands for a second, then said softly, “There’s something I have to… I have something left unfinished. I can’t stay. Not now.” 

Markus smiled a little. “Then, once you’re done..?” 

Sixty nodded. “Then I’ll send you a message, and we’ll see.”

Markus walked Sixty to the side entrance of the building. He watched him go down the snow-swept street, and stayed there long after the snow obscured his view of the lonely-looking departing android, lost in thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> North used INTIMIDATION! It was not very effective...  
> Simon used KINDNESS! It was SUPER EFFECTIVE!
> 
> So… I didn’t plan to write another chapter. But then that little writer voice whispered “I bet the Jericrew takes him in for interrogation” and then halfway through that same voice went “hey wow remember when Markus and Sixty literally just looked at each other last chapter? That was some nice chemistry, huh”, so… here you go!
> 
> I had literally one thing I wanted Sixty to do in this chapter, but then the Jericrew went and caught him. He didn’t even make it there! So there might be a third chapter.


	3. Priorities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sixty continues to be Cyberlife's most advanced crime-causing android. He assigns himself a new mission.

**_-Infiltrate-_ **

**_  
_****_-Optional: Repurpose additional resources-_**

  
 _Or I could just call it stealing_ , Sixty thought to himself, as he walked almost soundlessly down the empty street. The inch or two of fresh snow on the sidewalk would have left too clear a path to his destination, so he kept to the road. No big surprise that a literal android revolution caused reduced foot traffic, but it certainly was inconvenient, not having other pedestrians to muddy clues. Any footprints left in the road’s fresh snow would be cleared away by traffic long before police could investigate.

Standing outside his destination, Sixty stepped onto the sidewalk and paused, analysing. 

**_No tire marks in the snow outside the garage._ **

**_> Homeowner left before snowfall. _ ** **_  
  
_**

**_No footprints on the front walk._ **

**_> Nobody has arrived since the snow fell. _ **

**_  
_** **_All lights are off._ ** **_  
  
_**

**_CONCLUSION: Home empty._ **

  
It should be safe. Nobody was here. 

  
Sixty stole forward, the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk too wet to make any noticeable crunching sound. He tried the front door: locked. 

**_CHOOSE AN APPROACH_ **

  * _Go to the back entrance_


  * _Break the lock on the front door_



  
Weighing his options for a moment, he settled on going to the back. Breaking the lock of a door would attract far too much attention, but having the door open would make his departure significantly easier. He would depart that way.

  
Sixty trudged around to the back of the house, blurring his footprints together to make them as illegible and useless for investigators as possible. With the forecast predicting no further snow until tomorrow evening, he’d have to be careful about leaving evidence. The kitchen window was still broken. No surprise. Lieutenant Anderson hadn’t exactly seemed to have his life together.  
  
Sixty tensed outside the window. No- the _homeowner_ clearly didn’t have his life together. 

There was a sheet of black plastic, like a piece of garbage bag, taped around the hole, and the broken glass had been cleared away. Taking a moment to feel grateful for the Lieutenant’s inefficiency, Sixty peeled away the tape and clambered inside. 

The place was dirty and dark. Broken glass had clearly been swept up at some point, but Sixty could still spot glass splinters that had been overlooked. All available surfaces were cluttered with garbage, mouldering old food wrappers piled near filthy plates and armfuls of empty glass bottles that stank of alcohol. 

**_-Infiltrate-_ ** **SUCCESSFUL**

**_-Help Sumo-_ **

From somewhere down the hallway, Sixty heard a _thud-thud_ of something hitting the floor, like the dog had just jumped down from something. The bedroom was back there, he recalled. Sumo must’ve been sleeping on the bed, waiting, even though Sixty spotted a dog bed. There was the sound of a jangling collar, and the St. Bernard trotted out expectantly. When he spotted the android, he made a growl that went up at the end, almost questioningly.

“Easy, Sumo! I know I’m not your owner, but I’m all you’ve got.” He put out his hands placatingly. Sumo walked up to him, sniffed one outstretched hand, then walked away, uninterested again. The dog walked to the front door and sniffed it loudly, whimpering once before laying down in front of it. 

Sixty hurried. He rummaged through drawers, finding some fairly sturdy bags, and loaded one up with as much dog food he could find. Then, water bottles and dog bowls, and into the other went a dog bed. 

_Okay. Now for me._

To the bedroom, where Sixty looked for more subtle clothing. He’d hoped for something like a toque or a parka, or something that could double later on as a blanket for Sumo, but after several minutes of searching, all he had to show for it was a thick brown wool overcoat and no hat. He put on the coat and stopped in the bathroom to fix his hair. Some careful tousling later, his slightly curled hair mostly covered his LED and made him look a good deal less robotic. Sixty’s gaze lingered on the LED. It was tempting to remove it now. But no, he had no idea who would be sent to investigate, and he didn’t want to risk leaving blood at the scene of the crime. If another android with detecting capabilities was sent, it would be a very foolish mistake. 

A car drove by, and Sixty froze, waiting for it to pass. Once it was gone, he did not relax. _I need to hurry_ , he thought. _Where can I take Sumo?_

A pet-friendly motel, maybe? But of course, Sixty had no money he could use. No untraceable money, that was. For his investigation, he had been allowed access to a limited amount of virtual Cyberlife funds, but he was dead certain that his purchases were tracked. No need to make things easy for them and give up the fight on day one. He had no doubt that if he handed them his location, they would come for him. 

In search of funds, Sixty went through every location he could think of, but it seemed Lieutenant Anderson had kept very little cash around the house. He only found a twenty, which would barely be useful as emergency food money. Glancing back around the house, he briefly considered putting everything back, before deciding against it. If the officers believed that this was a common burglary, all the better. 

He slipped on the coat, grabbed a leash and his bags, and walked to the front door. Giving Sumo a little nudge, he roused him enough to hook the leash to the collar, and exited, leading the dog rather urgently down the front walk. Fortunately, Sumo had shaken off his sleep and was becoming increasingly excited at the prospect of a real walk. 

A thought came to him, and Sixty glanced back at the pavement behind them. 

**_PROCESSING…_ **

**Footprints - St. Bernard dog, <1 minute old. **

**Footprints - Cyberlife standard shoe, <1 minute old.**

That wouldn’t do. 

“Sumo, stay,” he whispered. He went back and drew his foot back and forth over the walk, successfully obscuring the footprints. Considering the high probability of clear skies until the police arrived, he’d have to sabotage this stage of the eventual investigation himself. He had just bought himself a little more time. 

The thought was funny, if bitter, and his mouth twitched into a tiny, humourless smile. Just three days ago he’d been investigating clues - or rather, a version of him had been. Now he was destroying them and committing larceny. He shook his head in response to his own thoughts, glancing over his handiwork one last time. Deviancy and criminality, so tightly linked. How did anyone else manage?

Sixty gave the leash a little tug, murmuring, “C’mon, Sumo,” and they left the cold, dark house behind them.

* * *

Sumo’s pace was slowing and he was having a hard time keeping his head up.

Concerned, Sixty ran an analysis. The dog was overweight and poorly taken care of, so his minor limp was likely due to overworked muscles and fatigue. This was probably the most exercise he’d had in years. Sixty thought back to the dirty suburban home as he’d first seen it, with the alcoholic passed out on the floor and an entire bag of dog food emptied carelessly in the corner. Now that he thought about it, had the lieutenant even noticed the broken glass all over the floor? Sixty hadn’t cared enough to do something at the time - back then, he’d been Connor, and the lure of a murder where the trail was hot and the witnesses were all androids ticking down the seconds to a memory wipe was impossible to pass up.

That didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Sumo was tired, and they needed shelter. He scoured the streets for a warm, dry place where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Nearby shops all looked fairly well-kept. Their exteriors boasted intact windows, and alternated between moderately clean paint and rough brickwork. The sorts of places that relied on alarms over barred windows. 

It was very tempting. He could hack alarms with hardly a thought. But in places like these, there was a high probability of getting caught, especially - his eyes flicked up to the second storeys - especially because they were partially residential buildings, with apartments above the storefronts. If he was on his own it wouldn’t even be an issue, but there was no guarantee Sumo could keep quiet. The last thing he needed was police attention.

  
  
Sixty did not need to run any preconstructions to know. Call it ‘intuition’, if androids could have such a thing, or maybe just common sense. It really was common sense, considering how the police had treated Connor even when he’d tried to be kind and helpful. Sixty just _knew_ that an android cop-killer would not last the night in lockup. Some sort of accident, maybe. There were dozens of ways to ‘accidentally’ die at the hands of corrupt enough policemen, and there were enough cops like Detective Reed that the odds wouldn’t be in his favour. They’d insist he’d been resisting arrest or something like that. It didn’t matter how. He just knew he wouldn’t survive an encounter with the police.

  
  
He huffed out a sigh and glanced again at the closest store. It wasn’t worth the risk to break and enter when things were so tense. They had about four days’ worth of food from Hank’s place, and while he was confident about his abilities to take down what meagre police response might arrive, he didn’t want to risk combat near Sumo.

  
  
“C’mon,” he half-whispered to the tired dog. “C’mon, Sumo, just a bit farther.” The street was empty but there were police sirens in the distance. Tugging the leash encouragingly, Sixty led his dog into an alley to look for more options.

  
  
Immediately, a large snowy shape presented itself, stationed in a back corner. Approaching, he brushed off some snow to uncover a tarp-covered car. The tarp was in pretty poor condition. It was filthy, like it’d been there for some time even before the first snow fell. 

_Maybe it’s abandoned?_

Sixty lifted a corner, careful to disturb the snow as little as possible. The car was an old manual beater, the sort of car that could have been described as ‘vintage’ or ‘valuable’ if anyone in its life had treated it decently. As it was, it was riddled with rust and was probably barely functional. Didn’t matter. Sixty elbowed the front window on the driver’s side hard, and with two efficient hits had smashed it in.

Sixty reached in and brushed the broken glass into the footwell, deciding to leave the broken window uncovered for ventilation. The tarp, weighed down by a steady blanket of snow several inches thick, effectively blacked out the other windows. He let them in, and Sumo clambered over the central divider to lie down across the back seats. Sixty squeezed himself in the back left seat, so that he’d likely spot anyone who came along before they could see him. Sumo huffed softly, but made room, and once Sixty had settled, Sumo laid his big head on the android’s lap.

Sixty stared for a moment. Someone, anyone, initiating contact? _Positive_ contact? It filled his chest with warmth. This dog chose to cuddle with him. It wasn’t for heat, obviously, since androids ran cold. The dog just… liked him.

Someone _liked_ him.

He tentatively patted Sumo’s head, before giving him a little scratch behind the ears.

**_-Check on Sumo-_ **

Analysis showed that Sumo was colder than he should be, but improving. Sixty monitored his temperature for several minutes, then examined his paws for signs of frostbite, and was satisfied to see that Sumo seemed fine. Sixty hadn’t caused any lasting damage to his only friend yet.

  
He pulled out the tarnished old metal dog bowls and poured food and water in them. There was no room to put them down on the seats, so he held them while he thought about his next course of action.

**_-Check on Sumo-_ ** **SUCCESSFUL**

**_-Disguise self-_ **

**_> -Alter jacket-_ **

**_> -Remove LED-_ **

This… This was something Sixty had been looking forward to, something he had been feeling a little curl of excitement about, deep down, every time he thought of it. Illogical as it might seem, he had been putting it off _because_ he’d been looking forward to it. He didn’t have a lot to look forward to. He’d been treasuring the feeling of having one exciting thing. However, it no longer seemed safe to parade around as an android, and he did have a unique face. One that, in all likelihood, only police officers and androids would recognize.

Sixty moved awkwardly to the front seat and reached back to place the bowls down in the empty space he’d left. He already missed the dog’s warmth.

He started by removing his jacket. He didn’t really want to change it. So many things had changed so quickly in the last few hours, and the jacket felt comfortable and reliable. The sight of himself wearing it was somehow steadying. But neither side of this pseudo-war would react kindly to an android in Cyberlife uniform. 

Thankful for his uniform’s atypical colour scheme, Sixty deactivated the light effects, inverted the jacket, and slipped it on again. The serial number patch on his upper chest and the armband felt unpleasantly scratchy and jarring, so he left the jacket unbuttoned and tried to ignore them.

Next, his LED. The interrogators at Jericho were able to read him so easily that the thought of removing it brought him grim pleasure. He deactivated the skin on his right temple and tried to pry out the little ring with his fingernails. No use. But he couldn’t just let this goddamn _mood ring_ stay in his head. Glancing around, he saw the rearview mirror, and yanked it down. Brusquely, he snapped the mirror in two, then into four. That gave him a large shard of mirror with plastic on two sides, and a jagged corner where the mirror broke unevenly. He held up a piece of mirror to look at himself in, and drove the sharp piece into the little indent in his head, prying out the plastic ring. It popped out and he caught it. Since the light within had gone out when the connection was severed, the ring was clear but for a few specks of blood. 

Sixty blinked, and angled the mirror he was looking in again. That was right, in his fervour to get the damned ring out and get it out _now_ , he’d nicked himself. As he watched, the cut in his smooth white surface repaired itself, and he allowed his skin to return. He twisted and warped the nonfunctional LED until it weakened, and then snapped it into as many little pieces as he could before returning his attention to the task at hand. Tilting the mirror, he admired his new appearance, when another thought came to mind.

**_-Disguise self-_ **

**_> -OPTIONAL - Modify hair-_ **

Since Connor’s face was fairly well-known, small changes to his hair would be unlikely to make a significant difference, and yet…he wasn’t ready to make big changes. This change would not necessarily be for the purpose of disguise, but for individuality. Sixty examined his reflection critically. His haircut was neat and professional, if mussed, and, like his clean pressed uniform, it was very Cyberlife. It had to go.

There was nothing wrong with the colour, he felt, but perhaps growing it out a little would help him blend in. It would give the impression that he was someone affected by natural processes, at least, such as the ability to grow. And he could always change it later, if he chose. That thought cemented it: good or bad decision, at least he was the one deciding. He tried growing it out one inch, then another. An inch and a half longer, he decided, was fine. It made his face look a little younger and softer, less corporate, less trim and cold and machinelike. There was something natural and human about it. His old professional haircut had looked good, but it wouldn’t exactly do to look artificial and newly-made at a time like this.

Sixty examined himself again. Recognizable, of course, but distinct.

**_-Disguise self-_ ** **SUCCESSFUL**

He returned to the back seat, packing away Sumo’s food again and taking up position in the left seat. From there, he could best watch the outside world, and he would have a brief advantage over anyone who came by.

Outside, thick fluffy flakes whirled down lazily. Sixty watched the gentle snow for most of the night. 

* * *

A full day of hiding from military and androids alike, of trying to look human, of trying to keep on the move without overtaxing his already-fatigued dog, was exhausting. When the sun started sinking, mostly hidden behind the thick November clouds, an alert reminded Sixty to find shelter before curfew. They’d been lucky the previous night; no need to test their luck again. Checking his internal GPS, he identified nearby Monroe Plaza as a good location to check out.

The plaza was empty. Nobody wanted to take the risk and walk anywhere, so everyone was driving. When curfew fell, the streets were deserted, save for the distant rattle of gunfire. Sixty glanced around for any abandoned-looking place. _I should’ve tried a poorer district,_ he thought, before noticing a hateful sight: the Monroe Plaza Cyberlife store. His lip twitched involuntarily in disgust at the thought of Cyberlife. But then, the first beams of weak watery moonlight caught the storefront, and even from way down the street Sixty could tell the front had been smashed in. Suddenly he recalled Markus’s peaceful demonstrations, especially the attacks on Cyberlife stores to free the slaves within. 

_May as well take a look._

Arriving at the store, Sixty cleared away as much of the broken glass ahead of him as he could, and carefully ducked under the police tape and stepped inside. The doors had been smashed in by the deviants, apparently using a bench from nearby to do so. But, aside from that, the store was in fairly good shape. It looked like it had already been looted, probably by the androids, and the neighbourhood was quite good so he didn’t expect further trouble. Heading behind the cash register to protect from potential onlookers on the street, Sixty unpacked and spread out Sumo’s bed, and Sumo lay down gratefully. Sixty put out food and water for him, then carefully checked the dog’s paws for any signs of injury. There were a few glass splinters stuck to the pad of one paw, but thankfully they were all small enough that they had not cut into the skin. 

Sixty gave Sumo a pat on the head and returned to the front of the store. He pulled the shattered doors as closed as he could, propped the bench up against them, and pushed the loose glass on the floor towards the entrance. It wasn’t much of a security measure, but at the very least he had reduced the chances of a stealth attack. 

Sixty returned to Sumo’s side. The dog had finished eating, and had curled up on the bed. At Sixty’s return, Sumo wagged his tail happily. Sixty put his overcoat on top of Sumo’s body, and pet the dog slowly and soothingly until the dog was asleep. The repetitive motions calmed Sixty, and stasis started sounding like a very good idea. He set a timer - _An hour of rest wouldn’t hurt, right?_ \- and shut his eyes. 

* * *

His vision was white. A glitch? Was he blind? He reached up to touch his eyes, and realized he could see his hand. Waving his hand before his eyes created long streaks of motion blur in his vision that faded very slowly. Well, that was a bad sign. He’d never started malfunctioning during stasis before. Slowly crouching, he felt the ground. Not hard concrete, like he’d momentarily expected after wandering all day through the city, or even tiled walkway, like the spot in the Zen Garden where he always appeared. It was thickly piled snow over grass. He opened his mouth to taste the harsh wind, and his oral sensors detected snow and hints of rot, like there was something decaying nearby.

He was in the middle of a whiteout.

Crouching low against the driving wind and snow, he tried to push forward, but the snow was engulfing him - it was so much faster than last time - his biocomponents couldn’t take it -

There was a break in the snowdrift and he pushed through. The sudden uncovered ground, bare of snow, was iced and unsteadying. He stumbled at the sudden lack of resistance, pitching forward. The thin ice he crashed into couldn’t hold his sudden weight, and then there was frigid water -

Rising stress levels forced Sixty out of stasis.

His eyes shot open. There was something soft touching his cheek - he was mostly prone? - and he pushed himself up. He staggered blindly to his feet, mostly supporting himself on the counter as he tried to draw in deep, unhelpful breaths. Icy winter air froze in his artificial lungs as he struggled for breath. The air was too cold, he was freezing from the inside out. He took an automatic temperature check and couldn't believe the reading of 3° Fahrenheit. The sleek, shining surfaces around him gleamed a dangerous, evocative icy white in the moonlight. _Goddamn Cyberlife colour scheme_ , he cursed to himself. His sensors were telling him everything was fine and he was well within normal operating parameters, but his mind was telling him that he was in danger. From the weather, from his mind, from he didn't even know what.

_Calm down. It's Amanda. It was all Amanda._

_Is Sumo okay?_

Terror gripped him, and he shot straight upright from where he'd been leaning, looking around for the big dog. Memories of waking from Amanda's control to find he'd tried to murder Markus swamped him.

_Did I- Did she-_

The St. Bernard, who had been lying on his dog bed only a foot away in a dark spot protected from wind and moonlight, whuffled softly in his sleep. His feet twitched; he looked like he was dreaming. Sixty sighed, relief coursing new and fresh through his system. _Right, I went into stasis lying on him._ Kneeling, he pet the dog in an attempt to calm himself, using the dog’s softness as a focal point to center himself with. He pressed his face into the dog’s side, breathing in the slightly musty, doggy smell of Sumo’s fur and listening to the dog's heartbeat.

_Everything's okay._

Sumo let out a soft half-hearted _uff_ sound and lifted his head. Dark wet eyes watched him for a moment, and then the dog laid his head back down on the tiled floor, his collar clinking softly. 

“Sorry for waking you,” Sixty whispered, but he kept petting the dog. Whether it was to soothe himself or Sumo, he didn’t know. Sumo let out a long, loud whimper, and Sixty patted his head. “I know it’s cold. I’m sorry.” 

There was a grating sound of a broken door being moved, and then the crunching sound of footsteps on broken glass. 

Sixty froze, eyes wide and fingers curled in warm dog fur. He slowly peered around the edge of the counter. 

A tall, strongly-built person approached, so tightly bundled in a puffy coat, toque, and scarf that Sixty could barely make out any features. He scrambled back defensively to press against Sumo, taking up as much space as he could in an attempt to fully shield his dog from any attack, analysing and reanalysing the person as they stopped there in apparent surprise. He scanned incessantly for a weapon, or the smallest hint of an aggressive move. 

“Stay back!” He snarled. “Don’t get any nearer!” But for all the virulence in his tone, he knew he didn’t cut a very intimidating figure. An unarmed man protecting a sleepy dog. Not exactly fear-inspiring.

The tall person put out both hands, tilted slightly upwards with the fingers spread, an attempt at a calming gesture. “Hey, hey, calm down, it’s alright, I’m not gonna hurt ya.” The tone was low and soothing. Analysis quickly suggested that the individual was likely an older female.

“I mean it! Stay _back_! I’m warning you!”

“I’m not here to hurt you, kid. I heard your dog whimpering and came to help. Alright?”

Sixty buried his left hand in Sumo’s fur, uncertain and high-strung. It was possible, but… but… he couldn’t let down his guard just because a weapon hadn’t been pulled on him. Detroit was not a good city to be homeless in. 

The person took a step closer, and Sixty tensed again until Sumo licked his hand. “Kid, I just want to help. You’ll freeze to death like this, if you don’t get arrested or shot for breaking curfew during a literal revolution.” They paused, waiting for some sort of response, but he just watched woodenly. They turned one hand so it was palm-up: an invitation. “Can I give you a ride to a homeless shelter?”

Sixty’s shook his head in a quick jerk. “No! I checked. Homeless shelters don’t let dogs in. And don’t you _dare_ tell me to ditch my dog! I’d rather freeze than leave him out here!”

A change. Something in the stranger’s stance softened. A tension left the way they stood. “I work in animal rescue. This is too cold for a dog to spend the night in, even a cold-weather dog like yours. Best case scenario, your dog’ll have minor frostbite on her paws by morning.” They hesitated. “If you won’t catch a ride to a homeless shelter, I have a spare room. Or a heated garage, if that suits you better. Anything to get out of the cold, right?”

Sixty’s face was guarded, suspicious. But then he petted Sumo again and read his temperature. The stranger was right; Sumo’s core body temperature was dropping too much, and there was nothing Sixty could do for him out here. At least a garage would be warm and dry and out of the biting wind. 

He nodded once, curtly, and uncurled from his protective position. “Okay.” Remembering belatedly that the cold was supposed to hurt him, he gently removed his thick overcoat from where it lay on the dog. He slipped it on over his inside-out uniform, standing. 

The stranger sighed and took off their toque, revealing a mass of curled brown flyaway hair graying at the roots. They tossed him the toque, and he caught it, puzzled. It was blue, striped, and knitted, with ear flaps and a fuzzy lining. “Kid, you look like you’re about to drop dead of cold! Put that on, would you? It’s not much, but my truck warms up quick so you’ve just got to make it there.”

He blinked in surprise, looking between the toque and the person, for all the world like he’d never been given something before. He slipped it on quickly, before it could lose its touch of human warmth. 

Busying himself to distract from his confusion, Sixty gently shifted Sumo off the warm bed and packed it tightly in his bag. He hefted the bag on one shoulder. “Alright.” He jingled the leash a little. “C’mon, Sumo.”

Sumo trudged across the cold tiles after Sixty. The stranger’s pickup truck was about a block away, and they quickly opened the doors. The second the doors were unlocked, Sumo leapt in, jumping on the front passenger seat. The dog turned around and made himself comfortable on the seat as Sixty tossed his bag in the back.

When he headed to the front, Sixty realized just how much space the wet, snow-matted dog could take up. “Wh- Sumo! You stole my seat!” He couldn’t keep the indignant tone out of his voice.

It took some doing, but with the help of the stranger, Sixty managed to coax Sumo into moving enough that he could squeeze into the seat. The dog immediately settled on his lap, and Sixty hugged him close, muttering fondly, “You think you’re a lap dog?”

With the doors closed and the heaters on full blast, the truck’s cab quickly became quite comfortable. Sixty petted Sumo and gave him behind-the-ear scratches. He couldn’t fully relax into comforting his dog with a stranger sitting a foot away. However, Sumo seemed perfectly comfortable in the warm car, and his tail thumped happily against the car door.

The stranger took off the big scarf they’d been using to protect their face from windchill. Definitely a woman. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, although her weather-beaten face suggested that the aged look was due to long hours spent outdoors. Her resting expression was open and friendly, and she glanced at him not unkindly.

“So. What’s your name, kid?”

Sixty went very tense and still. He stared at Sumo, not looking up, and she tried again, voice returning to that soothing tone. “I’m not going to tell anyone about you or anything. I just want to know the first name of the person who’ll be staying under my roof tonight. At least so I can call you something more specific than ‘kid’?”

Silence again. Sixty gazed very intently at the scruff of Sumo’s neck. She tried, “My name’s Minerva.” His eyes flicked over and he ran a rapid facial scan.

**_PROCESSING…_ **

**Minerva Elizabeth Lennox**

**Date of Birth: 25/06/1990**

**Occupation: Nonprofit treasurer**

Sixty fidgeted. “John. My… my name is John,” and paused. _Too generic. She’ll never fall for it._ He amended, “Jonathan. But… I don’t have a problem with you calling me ‘kid’.” He didn’t know why. It should have bothered him, he knew, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to mind. Maybe because diminutive terms often meant friendliness?

“Alright, John. It’s nice to meet you.” She started up the car and put in directions for the autopilot. “I was thinking, you seem awfully young to be out on the streets. How old are you, anyhow?”

_How old do I look?_ “I’m twenty,” he mumbled. Minerva made a sympathetic noise, but Sixty wasn’t having it. He turned and stared out the window determinedly, hoping to both shut down further conversation and track their journey.

An uncomfortable silence stretched on. Sixty busied himself calculating his chances of escaping the moving car unharmed - 14% - or escaping the moving car without Sumo coming to harm - 68%, if Sixty cushioned the fall with his own body. He moved on to his chances of surviving the night; being turned in to Cyberlife; getting stopped at a police roadblock and scanned; going out on his own and getting caught and shot by the military. The numbers were grim, but Sixty found an odd solace in them. Emotions were unpredictable, but numbers were reliable. 

Huh. That was a new thing he’d just realized about himself. 

_When I’m stressed, making preconstructions helps,_ he noted. Thinking back, this seemed to be widely applicable - he recalled preconstructing to lower stress back in Jericho’s field camp. Well, if the last twenty six hours were any indicator, life as a free being was _stressful_. He’d need all the coping mechanisms he could find. 

Through all this, Minerva shifted restlessly. She texted somebody, and then drummed her fingers before turning on the radio, switching between three stations before settling on the original station. _The Man Who Sold the World_ by David Bowie, Sixty’s analytics automatically noted. His thoughts eased a little at the sound of the music.

Finally, Minerva nodded at Sumo. “What’s your dog’s name?”

Sixty looked up, the tension in his pose quickly lessening. “This is Sumo. He’s very friendly.” He hesitated, gauging the situation, then added in an attempt at lightheartedness, “But be careful! He will lick your face. He’s tall and determined! He _will_ do it.”

Minerva laughed, “Alright, alright, I consider myself warned.” 

It was not long before the car parked outside the garage, though it did not enter. She turned off the automatic car. “What do you think? Would you like the garage, or the spare bedroom? I can show you both.”

Sixty spoke up quickly. “No! No, thanks. The garage will be fine.” He looked a little embarrassed, and glanced to the side. “No offence, just… if you turn out to be a murderer or something like that, I’d like to have somewhere easy to escape from.”

Minerva let out a sharp, short, “Hah!”, and shook her head, smiling. “A murderer? I didn’t realize I gave off that vibe.”

Sixty gave a half-shrug and a little smile in return.

Minerva’s tour of the house was brief but efficient: the bathroom, the kitchen, and then the garage. The garage was large, but fairly comfortable. However, the animal society she worked for had little spare room, and she was helping out by storing a horse trailer in her garage. It didn’t take up the whole space, but it took up enough room that Minerva couldn’t park her car alongside it. Aside from that, Sixty only really cared about scoping out possible exits. There was an interior door leading into the kitchen, an unpainted wooden door leading outside, and the garage door itself. The exterior door looked quite easy to break, if it came to it, and Sixty noticed with some satisfaction that it was bolted. If the military came door-to-door, that’d give him a few extra seconds. 

Minerva unrolled a futon that had been stored in the garage, and left briefly, only to return with a patched, warm-looking blanket and a pillow. She laid them down on the futon and looked down, then nodded once to herself and glanced at Sixty. “Want me to heat you up some food, too?”

Sixty faked a yawn. “No, I’m just tired. I think I’ll just go to sleep in a bit.” Minerva nodded and looked like she was about to speak, but instead left quickly when her phone went off in the other room.

Sixty sat down on the floor beside Sumo, and gently carded resilient clumps of snow from the big dog’s belly. As he focused on a particularly difficult knot of dirty ice and hair, the dog licked his face. Sixty smiled, just a little. “Unfair! I am trying to _help_ you!”

Minerva knocked on the inner door. “John, I have good news! Are you still up? Can I come in?” She waited until Sixty opened the door, and then continued, “I was just talking to my friend Janey Thacker, who runs a vet clinic. The clinic is closed to customers right now for everything short of emergencies, obviously, but she said she’d be willing to give your dog a look-over. I know vets cost an arm and a leg, so it’s probably been a while, but Janey’s willing to cover it, as a favour. Said it’s heartening to hear about people helping animals no matter what, especially when everything’s gone to hell, if you’ll pardon my language.”

Sixty blinked in surprise, then gave a polite smile. “That’s very nice of your friend. But… there’s a clinic open? I thought most everyone had evacuated.”

She shrugged. “Just because there’s a revolution doesn’t mean animals don’t need help. It might be a few days, though. With all the androids taking off, she said it’s been near impossible to keep the place up and running.” Minerva paused and added, “She also says that if you’re willing to volunteer a little, she’d be happy to help with your dog’s room and board. She’s looking for some help in the kennels and some help with reception. Nothing that needs medical know-how, don’t worry.”

Sixty nodded thoughtfully. St. Bernards certainly did eat a lot, and if they were to survive, things would have to change. He would have to adapt. “Do you think that if I volunteer for a bit, she’d be willing to consider hiring me? It sounds like there’s an opening. I… I don’t exactly have a résumé or any of that, but I’m not an idiot and animals like me.”

“You’ll want to finish a shift or two of volunteering before you consider applying for a job there,” Minerva warned. “Working in a veterinarian’s office isn’t all petting kittens and putting band-aids on puppies with bruised paws. You’re almost only dealing with hurt animals, not cute cuddly ones. Of course, you wouldn’t actually have to deal with them yourself, because you need a degree for that, but you’d have to be able to handle the sight of it.”

“Like I said, Minerva. I’m not an idiot,” Sixty asserted confidently.

She let out another short bark of a laugh. “That’s the spirit! Well, anyhow, I’ll let her know. Good night.”

Sixty gave a little half-wave as she left, and then settled down with his dog in the heap of blankets and pillows he’d made on the futon. He felt warm. Comfortable. Not comfortable enough to return to stasis, of course, not yet, not with the constant threat of Amanda waiting just behind his consciousness, but comfortable nonetheless.

He curled up with his dog and lay wakefully, taking in every last element of peaceful stimulus. For the first time in his life, Sixty looked forward to the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was just supposed to be "Sixty deviates, feels bad for killing Connor, gets Hank medical help, the end". It... went a little off-the-rails there. 
> 
> I might do a sequel! I have one in mind, but it might not make it to ao3. Regardless, if you read to the end, thanks! Feel free to leave a comment below.


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